India Microfinance

Vikram Akula, Padmaja Reddy and Udaia Kumar snub Ela Bhatt

Worried over the suicides committed by microfinance clients in Andhra Pradesh, Ela Bhatt founder of SEWA had organised an informal meeting on Monday and had requested some of the big guns of the micro finance sector to be present to discuss the current crisis, but all that she received was a royal snub with none of the promoters of the big MFI’s turning up.

Among those who were invited were Mr Vikram Akula of SKS Microfinance, Mrs Padmaja Reddy of Spandana Sphoorthy and Mr Udaia Kumar of Share Microfinance. A source close to Ela Bhatt revealed that ” Elaben had called the promoters of the top MFIs for an informal meeting. It was to try and put some sense into people and basically ask them to behave, but none of them turned up.”

Ela Bhatt is the founder of the Self Employed Women’s Association (SEWA) which is among the largest trade unions in the country with a membership of more than 687,000 women.The SEWA Bank was founded in 1974 by 4,000 women with a contribution of ten rupees from each of them.